'I will never have a baby again.' The bittersweet feeling of saying goodbye to the baby phase.

Three weeks ago, the dummy fairy visited our house. 

My youngest son (and last child) is three and a half, and it was well and truly time for him to give up dummies. So, my husband and I organised a visit from the dummy fairy. We told our son that he was getting older, and the dummy fairy needed his dummies for the little babies and would bring him a gift in exchange for his dummy bounty. 

Initially, my son managed this very well. He handed over his dummies willingly, likely because he was so enchanted with the idea that a fairy was visiting him and would bring him a present (three new books and a matchbox car). This enchantment meant that the first night was a breeze. He went to bed without complaint, earnestly telling me that the dummy fairy was coming, that he is a 'little-big boy now' and that the little babies needed his dummies.  

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Unfortunately, the few days after this were not so cheerful. The excitement of a fairy visiting him and bringing presents was gone. Instead, that excitement was replaced by a lot of whinging and whining for a dummy every time he was hungry, tired, or cranky – which is about 80 per cent of the time for a three-year-old. 

It took a couple of weeks, but he finally fully accepted that his dummies were gone forever - occasionally he would still beg for a dummy at bedtime, but mostly he was resigned to the fact that he was growing up and dummies were not for him anymore.  

When this had finally all settled down, I breathed out, I was so relieved that I would never have to go through the 'dummy fairy' fiasco again, we’d done it, our two kids were out of that phase forever. 

And then it hit me – our two kids were out of that phase forever and I felt deeply sad. 

I don’t like to admit these, because I feel like we’re all supposed to treasure every moment as parents, but I often wish for my youngest son to be older. Toddlers are just so intense, and some days, in fact lots of days, it’s just too much for me.

Like the times he screams at me because I’ve chosen the wrong bowl to put his biscuits in or when he cries uncontrollably because he didn’t want that Hairy McClairy book, or when he insists on doing the washing up and gets sudsy water all over the floor, or when I try to vacuum the floor and he screams at me that he wants to do it every single time I get the vacuum cleaner out so I never get to clean the floor. 

It’s A LOT. 

But sometimes, like in that dummy-fairy moment, I realise that when he grows out of this phase, I will never have a toddler again, I will never have a baby again, and I feel something akin to grief at this realisation.  

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I find myself wishing that my children could somehow exist at different ages all at the same time. Like some kind-of block universe theory of time, where I can be with my children as they are now, but dip back to visit them as they were.

I wish that I could visit my eldest when he was 12 months old again and clap and cheer for him as he proudly takes his first steps, or I could hold my youngest when he was a newborn and sniff his beautiful head, just for a few minutes.

You could call this nostalgia I suppose, and I suppose it is, but it’s not really a romanticism of the past, it’s just a wish to revisit my children as they were again. I don’t feel it for anybody else, even for myself, I just wish I could have time with my children at all their different ages, all at the same time. 

Oddly, I am not into babies at all anymore. I don’t want anymore babies, and though I of course think my friends' little babies are beautiful, I’m not really that interested in holding or cuddling them – I’ve had my babies, I’ve done that phase, I don’t want to go back there. I just want to visit my children as they were.  

I don’t think we talk enough about how bittersweet it is for your children to grow up. Of course, we want this, and many days I long for it to happen much more quickly than it is in reality; and nothing is more irritating than people telling you to 'enjoy every moment' when some moments, in fact lots of moments, are incredibly awful and hard. 

I don’t know what the answer is, except to take lots of photos and videos, and visit those memories whenever you can, and try to savour the beautiful moments whenever they appear.  

Feature Image: Getty.